It could have been much worse. Iran has claimed that it had the chance to shoot down a U.S. plane that was carrying 35 people—but that it ultimately decided against doing so. Iran claims the military plane was accompanying the drone that was shot down Thursday morning. The downing of the U.S. drone reportedly led Donald Trump to order a military strike against Iran, but he abruptly cancelled the plans before the missiles were launched. Amirali Hajizadeh, head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards aerospace division, was quoted as saying: “With the U.S. drone in the region there was also an American P-8 plane with 35 people on board. This plane also entered our airspace and we could have shot it down, but we did not.” He also claimed that Iran had given “repeated warnings” to the drone’s operators before it was shot down.
